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Conference Room 1 - Salle de Conférence Room 1 (2228)

This is where the streaming for all sessions in Conference Room 1 will take place. You can also watch this stream on Bell Expressvu on channel 539 (St. Andrews Community TV, New Brunswick).

When sessions are live, main talking points will be noted in the comment section below. You can email any questions you would like directed to the panel to Conference1@ComMediaConverge.ca.

After sessions are finished, you can go to the discussion pages to see a summary of the talking points in each session by stream, and make any further comments. The Community Media Policy Working Group will consider all feedback received in making its policy recommendations.

2) Michael Goodman: We need to build political power, since government has ignored the findings of the Kent and Davey Commissions. One strategy would be to engage churches and unions - he doubts the CRTC has ever heard from the Canadian Labour Congress, for instance.

3) Amelie Hinse: FÉDÉTVC recently did research on the local impact of community media and found that 67% of those sampled would access community media if it was accessible on a tablet. So community media need to adapt to new media landscape.

4) Amelie Hinse: In a recent report, CRTC stated that media production is more accessible now than in the past – but she says the reality on the ground is much different. It still requires a lot of training to produce content, even if it is easy to post online, etc. Media professionalization is still an issue. Could the perception that social media has made media more accessible make it harder to make the case for resources for community media?

5) Meagan Perry: "Montrealisation" and "Torontoization" of media means that local issues, which are often distinct from regional or national issues, frequently get overlooked. Can the absence or lack of other local coverage help bolster the case for financing community media?

1) Dorothy Henaut: The Government of Newfoundland wanted NFB to make a film to convince residents of Fogo Island to move off the island. Instead, the film the NFB made helped scrap the resettlement program. How often does government funding or support come with strings attached and how can community media practitioners resist this?

2) Alex Jansen: He mentioned that there’s a lack of understanding among certain segments of the public and within government about the relevance of video games as a medium. Is our ability to use public policy to help realize the potential of video games hindered by a misunderstanding of this powerful medium?

1) Dahne Jobson: The Toronto Community Media Network is participating in the City of Toronto’s Web Revitalization Project, which asks the public to help the city streamline its website to make it easier to access.

1) Travis Mercredi: It is important to bring digital skills into Indigenous and northern communities. Basic needs such as hunger are important of course and need to be addressed, but if policy focuses solely on these issues and ignores the need for skill development, Indigenous peoples stand the risk of being left behind in terms of tech skills and might feel even more “out of place.”

2) Someone in the audience raised the issue of bullying online and noted that there are advantages and disadvantages to the anonymity the Internet offers, such as the opportunity to spread hate without repercussion. But the audience member says he would see community responses to these issues rather than for it to prompt government intervention online.

3) Izzie Colpitts-Campbell: Izzie said that bullying is over-emphasized in the public discourse around the gamer community, whereas other positive aspects of that community get overlooked. Does this perception of gaming as a site of bullying hinder efforts to raise the profile of gaming on the policy agenda?

1) Gordon Inglis: Metro Vancouver produces community TV programming to inform public about major projects, give background on decision making and which he hopes connects with people’s lives. Campaigns are coordinated across multiple platforms, including social media.

3) Question: Do policy makers see audience size as the ultimate determinant of the worth of community programming? If so, how does this influence decision making?

4) Cathy Edwards: it's forbidden in Canada for municipal governments to hold a community TV licence. There are often windows in programming on community channels for government programming, but municipalities can’t have a dedicated government TV channel. Why not?

1) Florian Sauvageau: Dr. Sauvageau is currently studying the issue of cross-ownership. Is it is a problem that the owner of the biggest television station in a given city also owns the major newspaper? There are economic consequences to this situation, as well as consequences for the diversity of information.

2) Florian Sauvageau: He stresses the importance of recognizing the right to access media but also to participate in the production of media. We thought that the Internet was going to fix the problem of participation, but it’s more complicated than just having the means to self-publish or broadcast online.

3) Dwayne Winseck: Some areas of the media not highly concentrated, including internet news sources, but the internet is not immune to concentration – there is concentration if you consider the web browsers we use, for instance.

4) Dwayne Winseck: Concentration has deepened even though the media pie has grown and Canada also experiences high levels of vertical integration in Canada, high by international and historic standards.

5) Dwayne Winseck: He sees some cause for optimism in that he says CRTC has rediscovered its market power and noted in its current policy review that locally relevant programming has declined.

6) Dwayne Winseck: Given that broadcasting and print journalism are experiencing high levels of concentration and face a precarious economic situation, the need for community media is greater than ever.

7) Dwayne Winseck: He argues that the concept of BDUs should be done away with in place of a communications policy centred solely on carriage and content.

1) Robert Hackett: Community media offer many counter balances to profit-driven media, including serving underserviced communities and regions, allows for greater experimentation, provides training for volunteers in the context of supportive organizations and provides accountability to the broader public.

3) Robert Hackett: He argues that we look at corporate media as a case of market failure because it over produces market externalities. For example, the impact of advertising on children’s socialization. The flip side is corporate-driven media under-produces well-informed publics and a strong sense of community.

5) David Christopher: Open Media worked with CACTUS in its fight to re-imgiaine and reinvigorate community media. Developed an online campaign that helped deliver a petition to CRTC for the community media trust to be taken out of the hands of the big broadcasters.

6) David Christopher: There is intensifying media concentration on the one hand and on the other, the internet has opened up the means of production to many and led to decentralization of media production. But the missing piece is access to media literary and media production skills. One solution to this creation of community media centres – spaces that resemble marker labs and offer the opportunity to better leverage the full potential of the open internet and foster empowerment and a democratic urban culture.

7) Katherine Reilly: Big TV networks provide free advertising to certain humanitarian groups on community channels during crises, but this contributes to a “transactional” understanding of global conflicts. Programming on local TV channels that are owned by the big networks also tends to be parochial and often fails to link local issues with broader, global concerns. Communities need to understand themselves in a global context and they need the tools to be able to do so.

8) Katherine Reilly: Community media organizations in Latin America are developing systems to share content among communities to fight parochialism and build a greater sense of inter-community solidarity and awareness of issues in other communities.

1) Elizabeth Fenner : Important to remember that not everyone has internet access, so it is important to provide offline access to community media even as we move toward internet-based delivery of programming.

2) Question: How can we take full advantage of the opportunities the Internet offers to broader participation in media production without creating barriers to access for those without Internet access?

3) A conference participant brought up the issue of copyright infringement and digital rights management when community media outlets broadcast on multiple platforms, such as social media sites. Elizabeth Fenner noted that to get around this, Rabble.ca seeks out the work of local musicians to include in its podcasts and this helps build connections with those musicians and enhance the local component of their programming.

I acknowledge this Community Media Convergence is held within the historic Algonquin Territory that is part of current Treaty Negotiations with the Federal and Provincial Crowns. I also acknowledge this presentation originates from the unceded territory of the Coast Salish people.

Not expert on multi-platform distribution, I am however a practitioner informed by over three decades of media practice. In the early ‘80’s I was co-publisher of an English/Chinese language community newspaper – the Chinese Canadian Bulletin. This was a commercial endeavour in advertising which supported the publication’s editorial content. We became profitable with print side projects, primarily a guide to Chinatown to serve the visitors to the Expo 86 World Fair. After the fair, I was approached by Hopman Seto, a volunteer producer of Chinatown Today, a regularly scheduled community program on Rogers cable community channel. He introduced me to Deborah Angrave, the Rogers program coordinator, who over the years trained and mentored me in television production. It is thanks to her that I am making this presentation. I also thank Cathy Edwards and her team at CACTUS for organising the Community Media Convergence 2015.

Also not an expert on the theory and history of media, I have come to realize that each of us is a medium. Each individual is a prime medium. We observe our surroundings, people and events, interpret it and articulate our findings in words, music, art and a variety of other ways. Literally, two individual in discussion are engaged in a media production. Prior to mass print technology and widespread literacy, face-to-face meetings and gatherings of people literally produced media. Often the results of such meetings and gathering were reported to the illiterate masses via town criers, street performances and community meetings. This illustrates the relationship of media production and distribution.

The oral tradition combined with print technology and literacy begat the production and distribution of pamphlets, books, newspapers, music scores and scripts. Thus began the age media distribution as we know it. Advances in technology, especially electricity and digital, bring us into a world of radio, films, television, internet and so-called new media. It is still the individual as a medium or groups of individuals as media who produce the message. The message provides the content to be distributed.

Today this distribution is called cross or multi-platform. It is in the context of distinguishing media production and distribution that my presentation hopes to clarify with personal experience, practice and the bits of knowledge gleamed. I would say building mutually beneficial relationships is central to media production and distribution. Indeed, building lasting mutually beneficial relationships is the key to success and life. The individual prime medium and the two and more as media are the sources of our stories and content. From this are creations to be distributed in appropriate venues of traditional and new media. It should not be surprising that building relationship make the sourcing of content and distribution more effective. This is a very human side of successful media production and distribution.

It is also not surprising to realize my introduction to community television occurred because I published a community newspaper. The volunteer producer of Chinatown Today understood I had information and insight into the Chinese Canadian community which thirty years ago was changing dramatically. The influx of immigrants from Hong Kong in anticipation of the return of the British colony to the People’s Republic of China became a demographic marketers sought. Chinatown Today capitalized on this and provided community television content initially from the Chinese Canadian Bulletin. Later, the cast and crew had three Chinese language dailies and several radio and television programs and stations to source content from.

It is also not surprising that the publication of Fearless magazine under the brand of Fearless City Media was instrumental in what was to become the W2 Community Media Arts Centre. The then collective also developed a project using cell phone media production and distribution in 2006 and subsequently produced radio and television programs which were distributed via its internet website and various social media platforms. Most remarkably and seemingly in tribute to the prime media concept, a main source of funding became the late night dance parties which galvanize the partiers into volunteers and supporters of the media centre.

The W2 Media Arts Centre came about because developers were given increased height and relaxed use restrictions in return for a community amenity contribution. A media centre was chosen by representatives of the Downtown Eastside residents, often portrayed as having the lowest per capita income postal code in Canada. The low income and marginalized community wanted to amplify their voices via media production and distribution in the wake of the coming 2010 Winter Olympics. A media centre for independent journalists to be opened in the space faced delay after delay. Of course the community amenity contribution space didn’t become available until after the Olympics.

Moving in, W2 was a success in every way except financial. When it was seemingly turning the corner, the City of Vancouver called for payment of a $85,000 amenity fee for what was the community amenity. There was much protest but it was the end for W2 in the space. W2 is still operating in rented space in the Downtown Eastside. Its ongoing legacy include Media Mornings, a daily current affairs radio program on CFRO 100.5FM; best of the week broadcast under Democracy North syndicated to campus and community stations and VIMAF Vancouver Indigenous Media Arts Festival with its fourth year coming in May 2016. As of today, two years after the lock out of W2 Community Media Arts, the space is still mainly empty though a consortium of community groups has been chose to occupy it soon. Note that $170,000 of community amenity fees have not been collected in this period. I say the W2 media centre as a community amenity contribution was set up to be a political failure.

It is appropriate to congratulate Kokoro Dance Company, the International Dance Festival, Raven Spirit Dance and Vancouver Moving Theatre/DTES Heart of the City Festival on its successful proposal to move in shortly. I sent a support letter for the consortium to the City of Vancouver and am currently Skyping from the home of Terry Hunter, the Artistic Producer of the Heart of the City Festival located in the Downtown Eastside. It just recently celebrated its 12th year.

To me, multi-platform distribution is simply the amplification of media production. Currently we produce ACCESS Community Television, a regularly scheduled program on the Shaw cable community channel, which shamelessly promotes our friends and communities. The work is done with a core group of about 15 volunteers who in turn bring in more volunteers to assist studio and field productions. ACCESS also incubates CarnegieTV, which started in April supported by a grant to the Carnegie Community Centre often referred to as the living room of the Downtown Eastside. The grant is from the federal government’s New Horizons for Seniors Program.

Again not surprisingly, a main source of our content and distribution is the print Carnegie Newsletter, a free and widely read publication in the Downtown Eastside, edited for decades by PaulR Taylor. CarnegieTV is about the news and views, people and places of the Downtown Eastside residents. To my knowledge, it is the first regularly scheduled community television program in Metro Vancouver originating from a community centre. Arguably, it could be a first for Canada. This is a start for what I believe should be a turning point in existing public infrastructures such as libraries and community centres hosting media centres. Literally, such institutions are media centres already as it is where people go to meet other people and are venues for public meetings.

A layer of volunteers, equipment and training would make media production and distribution a reality in community centres, libraries and neighbourhood houses. It is noted that the Vancouver Public Library has recently unveiled its Inspiration Lab so the public can access the higher level technology of media production. I believe that politicians and social planners are recognizing the empowering nature of media production for the public and common good in our democracy. May it become a trend.
It is serendipitous that my work in social justice has been greatly enhanced by my participation in community television. Because Chinatown Today recorded many events beginning in the ‘80s for redress Chinese head tax and exclusion, there is an archive of the struggle in Metro Vancouver. This archive has provided media for several documentary films and excerpts and b-roll for many television interviews for community, public and commercial television. It is a warm feeling to know that others can build from our past work.

Community television production is built from a solid foundation of policy and practice. It is can now be amplified by distribution on social media and multi-platforms of traditional and new media. With YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, websites and podcast, the need for a cable community channel becomes clear as production and distribution can be achieved by an individual. At the heart of community television is training and equipment and facilities mandated by the existence of the community element of the Canadian broadcasting system. I believe the soul of community television is in people coming together to work as a team for the benefit of their community.

Build relations, follow your passion and long live community television production and multi-platform distribution. Thank you.
n.

Descended from Gold Mountain pioneers, Sid CHOW TAN was born in Hoy Ping, China. A baby immigrant, his papers indicated he was his paternal grandmother’s son – a “paper son.” The two joined Sid’s grandfather under family unification in Battleford, Saskatchewan. Later a “paper brother” arrived.

Graduating from the University of Calgary, Sid moved to Vancouver nearly 40-years ago. Best known for his decades work for redress of the Chinese head tax/exclusion, since 1994 he has volunteer produced a weekly community television program currently named ACCESS Community Television and Project Manager for CarnegieTV, a regularly scheduled program originating from the Carnegie Community Centre..

A freelance community organizer/media producer, Sid has helped found and build organisations to fill personal and community needs. He has served as National Chairperson of the Chinese Canadian National Council and current service includes founding director of Head Tax Families Society of Canada, Community Media Education Society and The Sacred Circle Society and director of Full Figure Theatre Company Society and the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop.